Lorraine Laird

Pronouns: She/Her

In my role as PA to Head of Materials Department and Communications Officer I come into contact with a lot of people, both face-to-face and via social media and internal communications, so I leapt at the chance to attend a Stonewall ‘Allies’ training session during February 2017 to help me understand the many issues facing our LGBT+ friends and colleagues on a daily basis, and to try and do what I can to improve how I personally interact with people - and to a greater extent the language employed for internal and external communications - all with the aim of helping everyone enjoy equality in the department.

Coming from a commercial background (including working in large personnel department and also as a lawyer for many years) I have a long and strong history of equalities training, but unfortunately in the past I have also had to deal with cases of prejudice and bullying in its many forms. Since joining the University, and in particular the Department of Materials in 2012, I have been delighted to witness how welcoming the University is to everyone without exception, and how it constantly strives to identify areas of inequality and seeks to redress the balance.